Nearly two weeks after the
300-tonne oil spill in the East Johor Strait, a check at low spring tide shows the fuller extent of the impact on seagrass meadows near Changi Point Ferry Terminal.
Oil and sheen is everywhere on a small seagrass meadow near Changi Point Ferry Terminal. The shore seemed a lot quieter than on my last trip here in
Jul 2016.
Walking along the Changi boardwalk, the overwhelming smell of oil rose from rocks along this stretch of beach.
Oil also coated plants growing nearby.
And oil coated trash remained on the shore.
Once again, we were lucky the oil spill hit the shore at neap tide. There is only a narrow band of oil on the rocky shore here.
As we got a closer look at the seagrasses growing in the bay nearby, clumps of oil and sheets of sheen were everywhere on the meadows.
There were puddles of oil at the edge of the seagrass meadows, and sheen across the meadows.
Sheen on the sandy shore.
There are small rocky outcrops on the bay. Fish traps are often seen here.
The rocky shores are still coated with living animals. Lots of
Melted chocolate sponge and other kinds of sponges. Also lots of
Button zoanthids. Similar to what I saw in
Jul 2016. There were also several
Thumbs up ascidians and many
Banded bead anemones. I didn't see any sea fans.
The rocks were alive with
Onch snails and
Drills. But I didn't see any crabs or sea slaters.
The most common sponge was
Purple branching sponges, many with brownish tips that lack colour. But I have seen this even before the oil spill.
Compared to my last trip here in
Jul 2016, I saw fewer clumps of
Zebra corals, about half of them were completely white (bleaching?)
I saw one small
Haddon's carpet anemone and one
Tiger anemone.
Also one
Cerianthid and a few
Flowery sea pens.
I only saw one
Ball sea cucumber and it was hurt. I saw two
Smooth sea cucumbers and one
Warty sea cucumber. On my last trip here in
Jul 2016, I saw a wider variety of sea cucumbers and many more individuals.
I did see one
Biscuit star that was half melted. But also some others that looked fine. I didn't see any other kinds of sea stars or sea urchins.
I didn't see any crabs, Chay Hoon saw some, but there were lots of
glass shrimps. I didn't see hermit crabs either. Nor did I see any large snails like Noble volutes.
Spoon seagrass made up the meadows here and they seemed fine. No bleaching seen. But also no dugong feeding trails. We didn't have the time to check out the seagrasses right next to the Ferry Terminal. But they seemed lush from a distance.
Let's hope these shores pull through the oil spill impact.
More photos by Chay Hoon on facebook.
Today, Chay Hoon and I also surveyed these areas for oil spill impact
Posts about the Johor Strait oil spill in Jan 2017
